


windup

by belforma



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-25 18:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belforma/pseuds/belforma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He needs affection, though, more than he needs attention, which Akashi rations out on the basis of <i>essential</i> need versus spoiled need.  (Read as: another oneshot on making dysfunctional relationships work, feat. Midorima's advice.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	windup

**Author's Note:**

> readerofasaph comment in one of her fic recs that she's a sucker for her worst compatibility ship and i ran with it in some fragmented mess.

He could have anyone he wanted, he reminds him in empty threats.

Akashi smiles at him. “Who do you want, Ryouta?”

The question is very rhetorical.

“Tetsuya, or Daiki … ?” There is a ghost of a laugh and a little bit of baring teeth. He closes his eyes in the most purposeful, graceful manner, bowing his head to hide his own amusement, probably. He starts another syllable, and then stops himself. He might be biting his lip, but he’s probably not.

Their relationship is not founded on the concept of kicking puppies; Kise knows what he wants, and what he needs, and Akashi knows it better, and sometimes he reminds him.

( _He needs affection_ , he reminds him.)

* * *

Empty threats only come up when they’re permitted, anyway. Usually, they’re mumbled, muttered, and whined under one particular exhale, and then never brought up again. They disappear into the atmosphere, and Akashi laughs a little every time.

* * *

He needs affection, though, more than he needs attention, which Akashi rations out on the basis of _essential_ need versus spoiled need. Akashi’s aware of this condition, too, or he likes to believe he is. (Akashi likes to believe so many things.)

He reminds him, sometimes. Akashi smiles at him; he smiles at him for a lot of reasons. There’s no indication that any of them are out of the genuine goodness of his heart, but there’s certainly something genuine there.

Amusement, and predation, and the concept of being eaten alive. (It’s all nonsense, though.)

* * *

He pines, again, for the hundredth time, to the point where the line between essential need and spoiled need blurs for the both of them. (It is no indication that they’re unhappy together, so much as Kise _wants things_ and Akashi never signed up for dogsitting, anyway.)

This time, Akashi gets him flowers, and tucks one behind his ear, and he smiles.

The next time, he takes him to his favorite restaurant, and pays the bill instead of splitting it.

Kise notices he smiles a little differently, now.

* * *

“How did you put up with him,” he asks, swinging his bags like a weighty burden.

“Is Akashi categorized as an experience one puts up with, now,” Midorima answers, sounding as disinterested as he ever has and appearing as interested as he ever could be.

Kise stops, stands crooked in his spot, and wears the most pitiable expression. “You’re friends, right? You know how he is.”

Emotionally, he means.

“You should know better than I.”

The pitiable expression stays. Midorima gives him a stern look, and that’s the end of that.

“A Sagittarius and a Gemini have some of the worst compatibility among the signs.”

* * *

Somehow, Kise ends up checking horoscopes religiously, for the week he can sustain it.

* * *

“Did you know a Sagittarius and a Gemini have the worst compatibility?”

This question is phrased as a smashed together block of words placed upon Akashi’s dining table. It is followed by a similarly phrased sentence, because Akashi is staring.

“But they can have the best compatibility, too. Isn’t that weird?” He laughs a little too loud, and gets sheepish after. “I guess it’s not really weird, though, is it. Sorry.”

* * *

“Do you have any idea why Ryouta told me about the compatibility of our zodiac signs last night?”

“Perhaps he’s finally been enlightened to the concept of ‘man proposes, god disposes.’”

“ _Shintarou_.”

“What?”

“This is my relationship.”

“It is.” _Hmph._ “I’d like it if it kept being your relationship.”

* * *

At some point, Akashi’s fingers have to slip between Kise’s unconsciously, easily; he has to let him rest his head in his lap while he studies; he has to kiss him like he loves him, if he loves him.

(‘If.’)

For now, he lets Kise’s empty threats go, until he bites at his lips like a clumsy boy and pretends to mark every grievance.


End file.
